


Broken Bottles, Jukebox Buzzing

by OnceInABlueMoon



Series: Collapsed Garden [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Blood, Episode: s07e13 The Slice Girls, Episode: s08e01 We Need to Talk About Kevin, Fantasy, Gen, Gore, Implied Anxiety, Mythology - Freeform, PTSD, Purgatory, Scars, Violence, Worried Dean, underlying anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 01:45:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9635405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnceInABlueMoon/pseuds/OnceInABlueMoon
Summary: "It’s just, we uh got to take care of Benny.” Dean says like she’s forgotten, but she hasn’t. Around Dean it’s hard, near impossible to forget.Dean says nothing more, but he doesn’t need too. She can feel him, like a small sun, his presence illuminating all the cracks in the universe.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've seen the idea of Emma meeting Dean floating around Tumblr and hence this verse was born. This fic takes place right after my other fic Fallen Warren and I don't think you have to read that first but I would suggest it. 
> 
> The title is phrase taken from Kenney Chesney's song Noise. This fic was not beta'd so all mistakes are my own!

Everything is so _loud_. 

The rattle of water pumping sluggishly up and through the pipes in the motel shower. The sound of blood-dirty water sloshing onto the floor near the bottom of Emma’s pale, soot covered feet. The whirr and hum of electricity, the whisper of Dean’s breath. She can even hear the thump of Dean’s heart (though that’s nothing new) through the paper-thin walls of the motel room. The bathroom that Emma is in is sparse and tiled. The overhead light casts an ugly yellow tinge onto everything inside the cramped room and the glare is espcially horrendous where it bounces off the green tiled shower stall as Emma stands beneath the spray. 

Initially, when Dean had first left her in the bathroom to get cleaned up, she’d been alone with no grit or blood or bone to grasp onto and ended up struck dumb and overwhelmed standing in front of the shower for a whole two minutes. _It was fitting maybe_ the dark recesses of Emma's brain seemed to whisper, _fitting that she had forgotten how to get clean because she would never be clean._

The thought had made Emma shake herself, and she had jolted into action, peeling away the ravaged, murder-dark clothes she’d been wearing for the past who-knows-how-long. (The once pink shirt is now bleached to oblivion from the spill of acidic gorgon blood and her jeans are demon-blood slick rags.) After a moment of fidgeting with the shower, she stepped inside, the slide of water against her skin unfamiliar but welcome. Before she died she only ever taken a single shower, and before that she had been too small and her mother had bathed her in a large blue bucket in the kitchen sink. 

The hot water is a shock to her skin, the same way the humid outside had been and Emma lowers the water to a cooler temperature, but not too cold. Around her throat, the locket her mother gave her places a metallic kiss on her skin where it bounces on her collarbone. 

And after a minute, Emma closed her eyes, just stands there feeling herself breath before methodically opening the shampoo bottle and getting started on her hair. The blonde strands are ragged and clumped together and Emma works through the knots as best she can, the feeling of bubbles sliding down her knuckles as she rinses out the shampoo foreign but nice. 

When that’s done, she pours a blob of conditioner onto her hand and rubs it into the tangles, uses a brush to work the product through her hair. The whole process seems futile, why the hell would she shower if she’s just going to get all ( _earth,mud,ash_ ) dirty again? She does it anyway though because that’s what normal people do and now it’s her job to pass as normal now. 

She lets the conditioner sit in her hair, and begins to scrub the sheen of dirt still clinging to her skin. A terry cloth rag provided by the motel does the trick and soon it’s damp with water and dirt streaks. Her skin is red like a lobster all the rubbing, but She doesn’t mind, distracted when she finds a long scar running up from it was wrapped around her ankle to her mid-calf. She’d forgotten about the mark but now remembers with sudden clarity stepping on the makeshift bear trap made from werewolf teeth and stiff, bleached, bone 

“Emma?” It’s Dean voice, clear as a bell where it slinks underneath the bathroom door and creeps up into the air with the steam. “You all right?” 

Like a rubber band snapping, it all comes back and the hairs on the back of her neck prick, around her she can her the sluggish pulse of water running through the pipes and the asthmatic rattle of the air conditioner. 

“I’m fine.” She calls back and adds “I’ll be out soon.” She can imagine his face pressed close to the door, brow creased with concern. Dean, even after it all still found the will to muck through the sticky sweet water that was _caring_ and the idea made Emma’s stomach lurch. 

“It’s just, we uh, got to take care of Benny.” Dean says like she’s forgotten, but she hasn’t. Around Dean it’s hard, near impossible to forget. 

Dean says nothing more, but he doesn’t need too. She can feel him, like a small sun, his presence illuminating all the cracks in the universe. 

His energy crackling loudly like a radio. Like noise.

**Author's Note:**

> Come be my friend on Tumblr @ http://thetardismademedoit.tumblr.com/
> 
> P.s. Reviews are like cookies, yummy and full of love!


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